The document discusses how the student's media magazine product uses, develops, and challenges conventions of the genre. Through research of other music magazines, the student gathered ideas on graphical elements and presentation for their target audience. While focusing on indie music, the student aimed to appeal to a female demographic by using female models. The dark color scheme and autumn tone photos challenge stereotypes of indie magazines. The contents page takes inspiration from other magazines to incorporate typical codes and conventions to create a professional product. The house style and orange elements are continued throughout to maintain cohesion.

1. By: Rosie Jenkins

2. Question (1)
In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms
and conventions?

3. Before the completion of my media production which is in the form of a magazine, I acquired
specific research which would assist me in creating a conventional product that suited the
general characteristics of my chosen music genre. I researched different “POP!” music
magazines to have an in-depth look into how the product produces general conventions and
graphical elements that help develop their basis of the media product in which they have
created. I looked at examples of Billboard magazine, NME magazine and Q magazine, this
helped me gather general ideas of how a magazine should be presented toward a specific
target audience, as all of the above would be classified for groups C and below as they
generally would appeal to these type of audiences due to the age range. During the creation
of my magazine, I solely based the genre around Indie music although I tried to avoid the
typical codes of Indie and create a more sleek attire to appeal to the female demographic. I
done this by using female models throughout the content to appeal more towards my
audience as this is what my magazine aims to do. I challenged the typical conventions of an
Indie music magazine by producing a bold black margin to support the house style of my
product, which features throughout all 4 pages. Referring back to my magazines house style I
tried to develop this throughout by including it on all of the pages as this provides a more
sleek attire like I tried achieving by taking the inspiration from the magazines which I
mentioned above. The images in which I used connote the idea that my magazine would be
quite a classic tone of Indie music for example as I included bands such as The 1975 in my
contents page you could suggest that I would classify my type of magazine alongside this
genre of music, as this band is specifically quite pop cultured but have an Indie mise en scene
culture. With the graphical elements used on the front cover of my product, I tried to
illustrate the idea of them all anchoring towards one theme however I done this by making
each subtitle a different font and creating them with different styles, for an example I created
a subtitle to look transparent over a larger “&” to encapsulate the idea of it being very female
demographic based with this connoting a sense of gossip and feminine attitude. The
photographs in which I included challenge the expectations of a stereotypical “Indie”
magazine as the stereotypes highlight the magazine being quite light with vivid colours
however I chose a very dark autumn tone to my magazine as this is what I would visualise
Indie to specifically look like. I titled my magazine “Adorn” as I thought this would conjure
ideas of Indie and symbolise a very distinctive layout, as the orange elements engraved this.

4. The research for my contents page took inspiration from a ‘NME’
magazine and the following ‘Q’ magazine. Within doing this, my media
product began to form the codes and conventions of a professional
product. The graphical elements which I developed on my contents
page furthered the accuracy of a music product, by creating the
masthead with a similar font to the double page spread this enabled
my magazine to come together to provide the needed touches for the
magazine to formally work. Continuing the house style of the use of
orange I again included this, to put a mild touch of colour on the page
to produce a simple but mainstream idea as my music genre is Indie,
orange is usually classified as a very indie cultured colour.
I accessed the
following
contents page
to inspire my
own media
product page.

5. Through the front cover of my magazine, I am able to
continue the house style onto my contents page and
double page. The representation of this generates the
appeal that my magazine content shows the conventions
and graphical elements of a sleek imagery based
product. I used the developed idea of a gutter, to create
space between my text so it doesn’t bore the audience
into skipping the page and not reading it. I used various
colours to change the subtitles etc. so it differentiates
and adds value to each question so the reader can see
the significance of each addition.
I took the influence of this page based on the artist Lady
Gaga.

6. However with my previous drafts of my media product, it lacked the development and aspects to challenge the forms
and conventions in which a music magazine embodies. Instead of connecting my fonts together on my first magazine
draft, the fonts used seemed a bit simplistic and boring in which I didn’t want my magazine to be. I challenged this
through the improvement of my final draft.
This is an image of my first
magazine draft, as you can
see it doesn’t challenge the
conventions of a magazine.
The image that I used does not connote the idea
of an indie pop artist, instead it seems a bit bland
and just thrown together instead of having an
initial thought behind it. As seen in my final
media product, this has been changed to blend in
with the background and provide a thought
through idea.
Again with the first draft of my contents page, it
lacks personality which I have tried to give my
final draft with a bit more sleek to it, instead of
blank space and no official area to where the
topics are placed or read.
This is an image of my first
contents draft, as you can
see it lacks personality and
graphical elements.